Cracks
by LydiaofNarnia
Summary: "It is all too easy for humans to fall apart." Pietro was breaking, falling apart little by little, and some days he wondered if it was even possible for him to be forgiven.


It is all too easy for humans to fall apart.

All it takes is a tiny crack- and no matter who you are, everybody's cracked in some way. Those cracks grow and they expand, spreading across every part of you until they've become a metaphorical spiderweb; a spiderweb that can tear you apart, destroy you from the inside out.

As humans, we constantly live to convince ourselves that these cracks are nonexistent- or, at the very least, that we ourselves don't have them. We hide behind an illusion of false happiness, and we convince ourselves that we are invincible.

But the more you hurt, the more the cracks spread, and the easier it becomes to fall apart. Sometimes it's gradual; a slow crumbling, caving in on yourself. Sometimes it's quick; where you collapse all at once as there is suddenly nothing left to hold you up, and you shatter.

Isn't it funny how easily self destruction can be brought about?

All it really takes is one little crack.

oOo

**Pietro Maximoff: A few seconds old**

Pietro's first breath was his mother's last, and that's where all of his problems started.

It had been a difficult labor and an even more difficult birth, and their mother, Magda, was frail to begin with. She was barely alive by the time Wanda had been delivered, but somehow she managed to get Pietro out as well before the light left her eyes and her skin began to grow cold. She never even got to look at her son. Wanda she had been able to admire, and in her failing strength had even been able to reach out and grasp her newborn daughter's tiny hand. Pietro got nothing.

Pietro's mother was dead, and no matter how unjust his father knew it was, he could never quite escape the idea that the twins had killed the only woman he loved.

But Pietro was only a newborn baby, and he didn't know any of that yet. For now, he was happy.

**Pietro Maximoff: Two years old**

His father was ridiculously unaffectionate to the both of them, and inattentive too, to the point where it was practically a miracle that the twins managed to survive infancy at all.

At this age, Pietro was quiet. It was almost unnatural, in a way; he'd always been a quiet baby, but even as a toddler, he was rarely prone to the emotional outbursts of Wanda. Where she felt, he was very clearly a thinker; when Wanda had a tantrum, Pietro would always stand and watch. He was also the more passive twin, however, and much more easily frightened than his bold older sister. Even at that age, he looked up to his father, the man whose appearance favored his own and who seemed so, so strong to the small boy.

Wanda, however, always seemed to be her father's favorite. She was the strong one; she was the stronger twin in the womb and she was the stronger twin outside of it as well. She learned faster- when her brother was still on all fours and gibbering incoherently, she could already toddle unsteadily across the room and speak broken sentences. She was the one who always cried; she was the one who wasn't afraid of anything. She was the one who lead Pietro along in all of their games, and she was, for all intensive purposes, the one who took care of him. Of course, the twins quickly learned to take care of each other- sharing practically everything for your entire life will teach you that.

The twins led a solitary life, cut off and isolated from their fellow children and pretty much any human contact aside from each other. It was a miserable set of circumstances; but the twins made the best of it. Safe in the knowledge that his invincible sister was always by his side, Pietro knew that he was never alone.

Pietro gained two cracks that year.

The first was the night of one of the largest thunderstorms the twins had ever seen. Pietro was never afraid of thunderstorms; on the contrary, he had always rather enjoyed them, purely for their sheer strength. In some way, they reminded him of his father. That's why he was completely bewildered when he was awoken in the middle of the night to a sudden, shrill scream that pierced the darkness of the room the twins shared together.

He sat bolt upright in bed, his eyes scanning the darkness to try and determine the source of the noise, but he was unable to until a flash of lightning lit up he room for a second- just enough time for him to make out the figure of his twin sister, huddled in her bed, her eyes wide with fright.

"Wanda?" He asked, and although his sister didn't speak he was able to hear her as she moved out of her bed. The sound of her bare feet on the carpeted floors told him that she was making her way towards him, so he wasn't surprised when Wanda crawled into bed next to him- only a bit confused.

"Pi," she whimpered, and Pietro was alarmed to hear her voice quavering slightly, "I'm scared."

This probably scared Pietro more than the thunderstorm ever could; Wanda was always the brave one, everyone knew that- everyone, of course, being the twins and their father. Pietro was the one who was always frightened. Wanda was fearless.

That was the first time that Pietro realized that no one- not him, not Wanda, not even their father- was invincible.

It wasn't often that Pietro cried, but when he did it was usually because he was alone. he didn't like being alone at that age; Wanda was almost constantly by his side, so when she wasn't it almost felt... unnatural in some sort of way, like he was missing half of himself. This was something Magneto did not fail to notice. Wanda was still mostly functional without the near constant addition of her brother at her side, but without her Pietro seemed to sort of... shut down.

One day, pure curiosity inspiring him to take more than the usual interest in his children, he separated the twins. Sending Wanda off to fetch something for him- alone- not only gave her a sense of importance, but it was a good opportunity for Magneto to view how his youngest son reacted to not having Wanda near him.

Magneto observed the little white-haired boy toddle around the kitchen looking for his sister for a moment before approaching the child and offering him a piece of chocolate. Delighted at the unexpected treat, Pietro immediately began to nod eagerly, and Magneto smiled as he placed it on the kitchen counter and gestured for the boy to claim it.

Wanda was always bigger than Pietro, and she was tall enough to reach the counter on her own. Pietro, a small and frail boy from birth, was not. Pitifully, he attempted to get it himself- even resorting to jumping once or twice as he desperately grasped for his prize- before he turned to his left, forgetting for a moment his sisters absence. Seeing an empty space where his twin would usually be, Pietro's eyes widened; and seconds later he turned to his father, shaking his head dolefully and gesturing for his father to retrieve the chocolate for him.

Magneto didn't move.

"Please, Daddy, please," the tiny boy pleaded, his eyes filling with tears as he ventured to grab at his father's pant leg while pointing to the treat. "Can' reach. Please."

Magneto simply shook his head and nudged his son away with his foot. "Daddy!" Pietro cried, tears falling freely even as his father pushed him away again. Finally, the solitude beginning to feel like a suffocating weight to him, the boy fell to the ground and began to wail. "Wanda!" he howled, pounding at the ground with his fists. "Wanda!"

"Silence!" Magneto exclaimed, his face suddenly inches away from his sons, and Pietro fell quiet out of sheer surprise. "Your sister is not here to help you now. You are alone. You need to learn how to survive on your own. Now," he commanded sternly, turning the boy's head so that he was looking at the counter. "What do you do?"

Shakily, Pietro rose to his feet and studied the counter for a second before seizing hold of the tiny step by the refrigerator that the twins both stood on in order to get what they wanted to eat, dragged it over to the counter, climbed up, and claimed his prize.

For Magneto, it was the first time he ever saw anything worthy of attention in his son aside from prevailing physical and emotional weakness as well as a great physical similarity to himself. For Pietro, it was the first time he realized what it meant to be alone. Many years later, when he would decide that he needed no one but himself, this would be the lesson he would thrive on.

However, he didn't know that yet. For now, all the tiny white-haired toddler understood was that his father was suddenly paying nearly as much attention to him as he did to Wanda, and for that he was happy.

**Pietro Maximoff: Four years old**

When the twins were four, their father decided to awaken their X-gene prematurely.

At first, he just wanted to see if he could do it once more; he was still haunted by Mystique's child, the little boy who, under the effect of Magneto's experiments, had sprouted blue fur and a tail when he was only a few weeks old. And, of course, his own children were the natural candidates for the test.

It wasn't easy; awakening a dormant X-gene involved injections and blood tests and all sorts of things that frightened Pietro to the core.

"Trust me," Magneto said at he sat his own son down on a table and readied a needle to inject chemicals into his bloodstream. And Pietro did- because it was his father, and his father, while never really attentive, would never do anything to hurt him. Besides, if Wanda wasn't frightened then neither was Pietro.

In a matter of weeks, both twins were developing powers.

Wanda's powers were gradual, and her father couldn't quite figure out exactly what they were; she could move small objects, that was for certain, but the blue glow her powers omitted couldn't exactly be called telekinesis; plus, Wanda demonstrated little to no control over these powers, and they could not manifest on command.

Pietro, on the other hand, was much more promising. At first Magneto didn't seem to be having any more luck with his son's powers than he was with his daughter's- that was, until the day the twins were playing tag and Wanda sprinted across the yard, and Pietro found himself running across twenty feet in a second flat. That was his power, Magneto realized immediately; superspeed. And Pietro, for the first time, was truly worth something in his father's eyes.

Magneto doted on the boy after that, and Pietro adored being his father's favorite. Being starved for his father's attention in his early childhood had left Pietro with a desperate need to be approved of by his father, and the boy was literally putty in Magneto's hands. When Magneto designed a regimented training program in order to enhance Pietro's powers, Pietro never protested, because he was finally worthy of his father's approval; and for that, he was happy.

**Pietro Maximoff: Seven years old**

While Magneto focused on developing Pietro's powers, Wanda's powers grew. And they grew, and they grew, faster than anyone could anticipate or control. Wanda had no control over her powers; and being an emotional child already compared to her brother's coolness, any outburst of anger or fear or even joy could trigger her powers, and things would turn to chaos in a matter of seconds. She was a prisoner to her own emotions, and even her father couldn't control it, though he did try.

For Magneto, there was no set event that made him decide to send Wanda away; for Pietro, the straw that broke the camel's back was the day Wanda nearly killed him.

It was an accident, of course- the twins were in the kitchen having one of their usual sibling arguments, bickering over some toy or other that they both wanted to play with. Pietro made the mistake of snatching it from his sister's hands- and all of a sudden, the entirety of the contents of the knife drawer was suddenly flying towards Pietro's head.

Pietro zipped out of the way just in time to avoid getting impaled, and Wanda began to sob. Though he was shaken, Pietro forced himself to be oblivious to the ominous glow of all the objects surrounding Wanda as she wept, and wrapped his arms around her shoulders and hugged her while she cried.

That night, Pietro was called into his father's study.

"I'm sure," said Magneto, "that you have noticed that Wanda's powers have grown out of control."

One thing that Pietro had always liked about his father was that he never spoke to him as if he were a child. He never exactly spoke to him like a son, but Pietro still appreciated it. Pietro nodded.

"I am going to send Wanda away," Magneto said, and Pietro's eyes widened, "only for a short time, to a place where she might hopefully receive better care than with us, and perhaps learn to control her emotions better. This will only be for a short time. Wanda will be leaving tomorrow."

Pietro said nothing, only regarded his father with solemn blue eyes, and Magneto continued. "However, Wanda cannot know about this. That is where you come in, Pietro- tomorrow night, when Wanda is in the car, it will be your job to keep her calm and unassuming. If she begins to suspect what we are planning, this will not work, and then we will all be in danger."

It wasn't a question of whether or not Pietro agreed with sending his sister away, or whether or not he was willing to help. He was going to help, whether he wanted to or not.

The next night, as he stared out his car window and tried not to think of the empty space at his side where Wanda had always stood, Pietro realized for the first time that he was now really, truly alone. His father had never counted.

Still- Wanda was in a better place, and she was going to learn to control her emotions, and she was going to be able to come back to them. And for that, Pietro told himself, he was happy.

**Pietro Maximoff: Eight years old**

Shortly after his eighth birthday, Pietro's father shipped him off to New York and placed him in foster care.

Pietro was never exactly sure why his father had chosen to give him up. Maybe Pietro reminded him too much of the child he had abandoned in the crazy house. Maybe Pietro was starting to too closely mirror his father. Maybe Magneto just didn't have time for a child right now, or maybe he just couldn't bring himself to care. Either way, Pietro soon found himself living with a foster family in New York, and that was when he realized fully that it was _actually just him now_. There was no Wanda. There was no Father. It was like the first eight years of Pietro's life had been all but cancelled out in the blink of an eye. He was all alone.

People were a new concept to Pietro. For so long it had just been him and Wanda and their father, that when it came to actually interacting with other people, Pietro wasn't really sure what to do at first.

On Pietro's first day at school, he didn't speak to anyone. At first, it seemed like all of his classmates were a bit intimidated by him; after all, a boy with snow white hair wasn't exactly the most ordinary thing in the world. Pietro didn't care. He didn't see the point of having any friends anyhow; he had gone for so long without them that he just didn't see the need for any.

But his strange appearance and standoffish manner didn't serve to deter one boy.

"Hi!" said the boy as he sat down next to Pietro at lunch that day. Taken by surprise, Pietro studied the boy; he was dark-skinned, but his blond hair immediately made him stand out a bit- just like him. "I'm Evan," the boy continued, popping a goldfish into his mouth.

"Pietro," the boy in question introduced himself, eyeing Evan's lunchbag in what he hoped was a discreet manner. Evan frowned at the empty space on the table in front of Pietro, and tilted his head.

"Where's your lunch?"

"Haven't got any," Pietro replied simply. "My... parents..." he ground out the word the gritted teeth, though it tasted wrong on his lips- his new foster family had instructed him to call them that, "didn't give me any."

"Do you have money?" Evan asked. "You can buy lunch. See the line?"

"I don't have money," replied Pietro, shrugging.

Evan frowned, biting down on his lower lip; Pietro could tell that he seemed to be considering something. Finally, Evan reached into his brown bag and pulled out a napkin. On the napkin he emptied half of his bag of goldfish and then added half of his sandwich, studying the array critically for a moment before passing it over to Pietro. "The sandwich is peanut butter. Can you eat that?"

"Yeah," Pietro said, staring down at his suddenly-acquired lunch in surprise. "Thanks."

"No problem," Evan shrugged. "Hey? You wanna see what I can do?"

All of a sudden, Evan was holding a skateboard. Pietro had no idea exactly where the board had come from or how Evan had managed to conceal it throughout the entire conversation, but suddenly Evan had a skateboard in his hand. "Watch!" he exclaimed, and proceeded to demonstrate a simple trick with the board. It wasn't terribly impressive; but to Pietro, who had hardly ever seen a skateboard before in his life, it was incredible.

"Cool!" He exclaimed, springing to his feet. "Hey, bet I can do that better than you!"

Evan's eyes narrowed, and he grinned a bit. "Yeah right!"

"Ooh," Pietro smirked, "sounds like a challenge!"

"Okay, tough guy," Evan retorted, passing him the skateboard. "Here! Try it."

Pietro tried it, and, as can be predicted, fell flat on his face the first try. "Ha!" Evan laughed, slapping his knee. "Told you you couldn't do better than me!"

A surge of anger flared up in Pietro's chest, and he scowled. "I can too! I _am_ better than you!"

Evan snorted. "Sure. That's why you can't do a dumb skateboard trick."

Glaring, Pietro picked up the skateboard again. "Sure I can,' he replied; and this time, putting his super speed and quick reflexes to use, he actually managed to nearly replicate Evan's trick. Once he was finished, he stood back, smirking proudly, and nudged the board towards Evan with his foot.

"Whoa!" Evan gaped, blinking in astonishment. "You did it!"

"I told you I could."

Evan, for a moment, seemed conflicted on whether he wanted to be happy or upset; eventually, he grinned. "Cool!" he exclaimed, not noticing Pietro's expression shift in to one of alarm as he quickly took his seat again.

"Evan!" A voice spoke up behind him, and Evan's eyes widened as he spun around to see Ms. Pritchard frowning down at him. "What have we said about bringing your skateboard into school?"

"No tricks in the cafeteria or classrooms," Evan replied, hanging his head. "I know."

"And encouraging our new student to break the rules too! I'm afraid I'm going to need to keep both you and Pietro here on the bench for a few minutes during recess."

Evan sighed mournfully as Ms. Pritchard left them. "Great," he murmured. "That's the second time this week! My mom's gonna be so mad!"

"It's no big deal," Pietro replied, shrugging. "Who cares? It's just recess."

"Yeah," Evan said slowly, before brightening. "That was still a neat trick though. Nice job."

"You too," Pietro grinned at him, and took a bite of his sandwich.

From that day forward, he and Evan alternated between being friends and rivals. As they grew older, the competition intensified to an almost dangerous degree- but for that time, Pietro could content himself with having made at least one sort-of friend at school. Even if he didn't have Wanda or his father, at least he sometimes had Evan. And for that, Pietro told himself, he was happy.

**Pietro Maximoff: Eleven years old**

One day, while walking home from school, Pietro got jumped.

Normally if anybody tried to start something with him he would have been able to escape pretty easily- he was fast enough. But these were big ninth graders and they took him by surprise. So the next thing he knew, he was on the ground with three hulking football players sneering down at him.

"Where you going, you little albino freak?" one sneered, and Pietro's eyes narrowed.

"Wow," he said caustically, sitting up and glaring at the older kids. "I would have thought you'd have better things to do than harass some random kid, but I guess I was wrong."

"Shut up!" exclaimed one of the other boys, aiming a kick at Pietro's ribs. Shocked, Pietro let out a gasp and doubled over again. "We want your money. Give us your money!"

"Do I look like someone who'd have any money?" Pietro snapped, attempting to rise to his feet. One of the boys shoved him down again.

"I don't like your attitude!"

"Yeah, well I don't care," Pietro retorted, and the boys' faces darkened.

"Fine," snarled the boy who'd kicked him before. "We'll just be on our way, then."

For a moment, Pietro was hopeful that they would really just leave him alone; but then he realized how naive that thought was, a second before the boy's foot slammed into his stomach.

Involuntarily letting out a cry, Pietro felt himself be lifted off the ground by the front of his sweater, and as he squirmed a fist slammed into the side of his mouth.

The thugs spent the next few minutes punching and kicking the eleven year old, showing no sympathy even as the younger boy spat blood on to the pavement. Pietro got in a few good hits as well, and even managed to slam one of the boys right in the face- but he was small and thin, and his powers were all but useless in hand to hand combat, and he wasn't able to do much until the boys finally separated a small bit, leaving a space in between them that Pietro's eyes immediately locked on to.

He was gone like a flash, taking off down the sidewalk so fast that the boys couldn't even see him. The adrenaline coursing through his body detracted from the pain of his injuries, and for a long time all he did was run.

Running was good. When he ran, he didn't have to think. When he ran, he wasn't anything corporal; he was wind and air and speed and when he ran there was no Pietro. When Pietro ran, he was free.

He wasn't sure how long he ran for; it could have been minutes, it could have been hours. But he eventually did stop, not out of necessity but purely out of the rising concern for the damage done to his face. When he stopped, he realized several things at once. One, his shoes were burnt out, again; and two, based on the flag hanging over the doorway of a store, he was in Canada.

It didn't take him long to enter the store and ask if he could use the bathroom there, brushing off worried enquiries from the store's manager as he darted back to where he'd been told the restroom was. As he flicked on the light and gazed at himself in the mirror, what he saw made him groan in shock.

His hair was messed up, his face was peppered with bruises and cuts, and one eye was quickly swelling shut. He gingerly touched the place where his tooth had dug into his gum after being punched so hard that he saw stars, and the sharp pain caused him to wince.

There was nowhere for Pietro to go. He didn't have any friends he could turn to to help him get patched up, and he knew for a fact that his foster parents could probably care less that he was in Canada right now. Pietro, as usual, was on his own.

But Pietro had known how to take care of himself for a long time now. He was alone, and this was the moment that he truly realized that he could not rely on anyone but himself. And he was just fine with that. He didn't _need_ anyone else.

Returning to the main part of the store and stealing a box of band-aids faster than anyone could see him was too easy. With a sigh, Pietro sat down on the bathroom floor and began to patch up his injuries. he was all on his own, he knew, and he told himself that that was a good thing; there would be no more Wanda being taken away, no more Father abandoning him. He was on his own, and he told himself he should be happy.

**Pietro Maximoff: Fifteen years old**

Evan Daniels was a jerk.

Pietro had decided this long ago, around the same time that their friendly rivalry of their childhood had turned in to something far more competitive. But seeing Evan Daniels, that _jerk_ Evan Daniels, carried around the basketball court like some sort of hero, all for a shot that should _rightfully_ have been Pietro's, was almost more than he could bear.

First it was the shaving cream in his locker. That was one thing. And then it was pretending to snip off a piece of Pietro's hair during study hall, an act which Pietro very nearly throttled him for. But this... this was probably the worst.

It isn't as if Pietro was expecting to have been praised or anything; he knew that the only reason Evan was being ailed so much was that he was in general much more well liked than Pietro was. Though they both had reputations for being troublemakers, Pietro was seen as much less... friendly than Evan. While generally this didn't bother Pietro that much- after all, who needed friends, Pietro had himself, and he got enough dates so that he was never all too lonely most of the time- sometimes he did have to wonder what it would be like to be as generally well-liked as Evan seemed to be. And that shot... had Pietro ignored his coach and just made the shot himself, something he knew that he was fully capable of doing, then it would be him being carried off the court like a champion. Not Daniels.

And that's probably why he did it; maybe Pietro was just pushed one peg too far, and that's why he decided to go where their rivalry had never gone before and pull the stunt with the lockers. Of course, Pietro had known that Evan was a mutant for some time- it wasn't as if the kid really did a bang-up job hiding it- but seeing the look on Daniels's face when he realized that his old friend was a mutant too, and then exactly what he had meant by "scapegoat" made it entirely worth it.

It wasn't until Pietro found himself sitting in a cell himself that he even remotely began to regret it.

Confinement was torture for Pietro. He, who was always on the move, always going faster than anyone else could follow, could not tolerate being held in an enclosed space for such a long period of time. And the worst part? There was no possible escape. The realization was crushing; for the first time, Pietro had failed himself, and in his frustration and anger that was the first time he ever truly declared himself stupid.

Magneto's return hit him harder than anything. Of all the things he had expected could happen to him from that point on, ever seeing his father again had not been one of them. He had thought Magneto was done with him after he abandoned him in the system and left him here to rot. That's why the only thing Pietro was able to say, upon recognizing his father again, was a lame exclamation of, "you!"

"I have need of your services." Of course. Because, the Magneto, Pietro wasn't a son. He was simply a henchman. That's the way it had always been, ever since Magneto decided that his son might be worth more to him than simply being a mere nuisance.

Still, Pietro went with his father. Why? For a long time he could never pinpoint exactly why he had agreed to follow his father out of the prison that night. Perhaps it was because he simply couldn't take the confinement anymore. But in truth, Pietro knew- Magneto controlled him, in the same way he controlled the metals he manipulated. It was a magnetic attraction between father and son, and as long as it existed, Pietro would always run back to his father.

And then he met the Brotherhood.

Bayville was a tiny, boring little town, and didn't make much of an impression; but the Brotherhood quickly remedied that.

It was Lance whom he met first, and it was Lance who he grew the closest to. They were like brothers, he and Lance; both had been in the foster system, Lance having had far poorer experiences than Pietro on that front; both seemed to have the same harsh, bitter way of looking at the world around them; both seemed to understand each other like no one ever had before. In Lance, Pietro found his first real, true friend.

That wasn't to undermine the rest of the Brotherhood; Fred had a hair-trigger temper and was practically invincible, and he was a pretty hard shell to crack, but he had his virtues. He was loyal, definitely a good guy to have at your back, and he was undoubtedly the best cook of all the boys. And Toad, despite being the youngest of all of them, was smarter than anyone gave him credit for, and was the best pickpocket in Bayville- even better than Pietro.

With the Brotherhood, Pietro had finally found people who had his back, finally found people who he could count of, even people who... cared about him. And in return and despite his better judgment, Pietro slowly felt himself beginning to care about them too. The Brotherhood might not have been much, but living with them was the best thing that Pietro could remember, and, for the first time in a long time, he was happy.

**Pietro Maximoff: Sixteen years old**

Tabby was wild; she was crazy, unpredictable, and utterly mad, and she was the most like Pietro of any of the Brotherhood. Maybe, then, it's no surprise what happened next.

It started out as just casual things, kept carefully hidden from the rest of the Brotherhood, of course; they would make out is stores, late at night when no one was around, in closets at school. Somehow, they managed never to get caught, and that was the most amazing thing. Tabby was Pietro's first real girlfriend, and she was the first person that he actually could entertain the thought of spending the rest of his life with. Maybe, he mused, maybe, he could be happy with her.

When Lance left, Pietro took it the hardest. He had suspected, for a long time, that Lance's loyalties might be shifting; but when he actually left, it felt like a blow to the gut. Lance had been his brother; him leaving them- for something so stupid as a _girl_, no less, an _X-Geek_- was unimaginable.

Lance came back, of course- but it took a long time for Pietro to get over the sense of betrayal. When someone hurt him, Pietro was the type of person who felt it for a long, long time- over the years, he had just grown scarily good at pretending that he didn't care about anything.

Pietro should have known that it wouldn't last. After all, nothing good lasts forever. He should have known that by then.

He lost Tabby and gained Wanda on the same day. He and Tabby never officially broke up, so to speak- but when he kept her from murdering Mystique and then stood by as she left, that kind of said everything right there.

Seeing Wanda again... was both nothing like he had imagined it would be and exactly like it at the same time. This wasn't the Wanda he remembered. This girl was bitter, and violent, and so, so angry. his father had lied. Wanda had not learned to control her emotions; she had simply lost control of everything.

It was Wanda's words that stung the most: "You're just like him. You always were." She, of course, had no way of knowing how much Pietro feared that every day. She couldn't know that when he looked into a mirror he felt simultaneous love and hatred for himself, because he was staring at himself, but he looked so much like him. This he masked in vanity, but he could never escape the constant, gnawing fear, that maybe he really was exactly as much like his father as the mirror seemed to claim.

And then he left.

It didn't matter if he was happy with the way his life had been going. It didn't matter if he would much rather be fighting beside his friends than against them. That didn't matter because the pull of his father was too strong. When Magneto called, Pietro would answer- even if he did end up hating himself for it.

He left his friends to die; all for his father. And that was the moment that he realized that maybe Wanda was right.

"Blood is thicker than water." Which was, of course, utter bull and Pietro knew it. If that was true, than he must have some pretty messed up blood. But still, it did often seem as if the saying ran true for him; whether he wanted it to or not.

Even though he had saved his father's life, Pietro was still nothing more than a henchman to him. No matter what Pietro did, he would always be a henchman, a mere shadow to his father. He wondered if that would be his life from then on.

But a few months before Pietro's seventeenth birthday, his father announced that he was going to send him back to the Brotherhood. He told Pietro that he was going to be the new official leader of his former friends, and he was going to be the one to train them to be worthy enough to join Magneto when the time came. For the first time, Pietro felt as if he were actually something more to his father; as if, maybe, saving his life and constantly following him wherever he went, _abandoning his friends_ for him, had made an impression after all.

Pietro was determined to make his father proud; to make his father see that he was worth something. When he went back to the Brotherhood house, that was all he had in mind; impress his father.

After all, he told himself, he didn't need to Brotherhood. He had been alone all his life. Why couldn't he be alone again? Of course he could, he told himself; and then his father would approve of him. And then, maybe, he could be happy.

**Pietro Maximoff: Seventeen years old**

His sixteenth birthday was spent in the company of his friends. It was the first time in years that Pietro actually had a real birthday celebration- or, as close as the Brotherhood could come to it. Fred made a cake; Todd stole some balloons; and every one of them came up with some sort of little present for Pietro. He still has them all; the CDs that Lance gave him, a new hair comb from Fred, a mirror from Tabby, and a brand new pair of sneakers from Toad. He treasured those presents.

His next birthday, he celebrated on his own.

It wasn't as if the other members of the Brotherhood didn't remember; on the contrary, Pietro knew that Lance, at least, remembered, just from the way he'd been looking at him all day. no, it was more like they didn't care.

And why should they? He had, after all, left them.

He had come back to the Brotherhood house with the intention of shaping them up, like his father wanted; but it had been no where near easy. The Brotherhood weren't exactly being helpful- any time Pietro tried to train them, it usually turned into some sort of play-fight of some sort, and then Pietro was never able to get them back into order again. He realized quickly that it wasn't that the group needed training, but strategy, and so he turned his attention towards coming up with actual plans to defeat the X-Men. None of which seemed at all likely to work, and which his other team members quickly shot down.

To Pietro, it seemed as if a lead weight was slowly pressing down on him, flattening him little by little until soon he would be nothing but a pile of dust. This weight could only be his father.

He checked in weekly, sometimes twice a week; and never daring to lie to him, most of the time Pietro had nothing to report. He could feel his father growing frustrated, and Magneto said as much. Several months after appointing Pietro, he made his position clear; either train the Brotherhood well or he would give them up- give all of them up, Pietro included- as a lost cause. That meant they would be back to the way they had been after being abandoned by Mystique; no money, which meant no heat, no water, and no food.

It wasn't exactly helping Pietro knowing how much his teammates hated him.

On the night Pietro had come back, Pietro and Lance had fought. Not a verbal fight, mind you- a knock-down, drag-out fight with fists, nails, and- Pietro recalled ruefully, rubbing the spot on his arm which he swore was still sore- _teeth_ (seriously, Lance said Pietro fought like a girl, but Lance fought like Wolverine on crack). It had ended in a draw, when both participants were simply too exhausted to continue, but Pietro still recalled how good that fight had felt- not only hitting Lance, because Pietro hadn't realized until that moment just how much he needed to hit something- but being hit. Because he knew that he deserved it.

After that, Lance barely bothered to speak to him, and kept out of the house as much as possible. Pietro barely ever saw him, and that was just fine with him. Toad and Fred were always around, however, and they were the ones who did whatever Pietro told them; though not without some degree of loathing.

Pietro didn't like looking in the mirror anymore. A year ago, that used to be one of his greatest pleasures; he was vain, and had no problem admitting it. But now, when he looked into the mirror, all he could see was Magneto- a liar and a coward who had no problem abandoning the people who relied on him most.

He was selfish; he was so, so selfish, and he knew it. If he wasn't, then he never would have just left like that. No altruistic person could ever have just disregarded his friends like that, his _family_- for what? He was as selfish as Magneto, and while Pietro never thought once in sixteen years that he could ever say that he hated himself and mean it, it was true; he hated himself.

The only good thing about the situation was that Wanda was no longer trying to kill him; however, while having his sister be completely mind-warped wasn't exactly Pietro's ideal, he pushed his conscience back. He had his sister back, at least- sort of, not really, but he could at least say that he _had _a sister now- and that was something.

His seventeenth birthday was a lonely affair; Pietro sat up in his room with a tiny cupcake he had stolen from the local bakery himself, and he smiled at his own patheticness. He knew how pitiful the sight was; a boy sitting alone (as always) in his room at three minutes past midnight with a tiny little cupcake, quietly humming happy birthday to himself.

He was alarmed by a knock on the door; mainly because it was so late, but also because he couldn't imagine any one of his housemates actually wanting to talk to him- never mind having the courtesy to knock.

Zipping over to the door, he was stunned to see Lance standing there; dressed in his pajamas, with something very clearly hidden behind his back.

"Lance? What are you doing?"

"Same thing you are," Lance said, nodding past Pietro's shoulder at the cupcake sitting on his bed. "Can I come in, or are you just going to make me stand out in the hallway all night?"

"Uhh... sure," Pietro said, opening the door just wide enough so that Lance could come in. As a rule, he didn't usually let people into his room; it was something to personal, and even though he knew it was stupid, he didn't like other people seeing 'his' space.

"I didn't think you actually cared about my birthday," Pietro remarked, taking a seat on his bed again and placing the cupcake on his bedside table.

"Yeah," Lance said, standing sort of awkwardly in the middle of the room. "Well, believe it or not, you sort of used to be my friend."

"You got me something," Pietro observed, speeding behind Lance in order to get a look at whatever it was- swiftly, Lance spun around and hid it behind his back again. "Aww, come on," Pietro pouted. "Lemme see what it is!"

"Okay," Lance said, rolling his eyes. "Fine." With as much of a flourish as he could manage- this was Lance, of course- he produced a small, rectangular cardboard package. Snatching it from his hands, Pietro had it open in seconds; and his eyes widened at seeing what the box contained.

"Whoa!" he exclaimed, holding up a smooth silver wrist watch. "This is so cool, Lance! How did you afford it?"

"I... didn't, actually," Lance admitted. "I got Toad to steal it for me. I figured you wouldn't mind- unless Daddy suddenly has something against us stealing now, too."

Pietro narrowed his eyes, and slowly placed the watch back in the box again. "You know, I don't do everything my father says, just because he says it."

"Yeah? Well, you could have fooled me."

"Look Avalance, I really don't feel like fighting right now," Pietro sighed in exasperation, gritting his teeth. "If you really want to go, it can wait until morning. Just... not right now."

"Pietro-" Lance began, stopping as he studied his former friend for a moment. Pietro hoped that he was going to leave; but, of course, this was Lance they were dealing with here, and that meant he had to be difficult.

"Can I at least know why?" he asked at last, his voice coming out much quieter than Pietro had expected. "You never told me why."

"I- I- I don't know, okay?" Pietro frowned, realizing how stupid he sounded. Lance, clearly, was not impressed- his eyes narrowed and he began to back out the doorway. But Pietro had already begun this; and, suddenly, he found that he _needed _to finish. "You just don't get it, Lance!" he exclaimed. "You don't get what it's like, to have a father who you know that you should absolutely hate- a father who you know doesn't care about you or your sister in the slightest- but you can't, because he's your father! You don't understand what it's like to always be drawn back! You're mad at me, and yeah, maybe I deserve it- but you just don't get it!"

Pietro wasn't sure what he had been expecting- sympathy, maybe, for some twisted reason, or at least for Lance to maybe understand; but Lance's face remained as hard as ever. "Why can't you just give him up? Why do you have to let him run your life?"

"Because I don't have a choice!" Pietro exclaimed. "I've tried to give him up! Believe me! But I can't! I always go back to him, that's the way it's always been, and that's the way it always will be! It's not even like I like the guy or anything- I hate him! I hate him for what he did to Wanda, and what he did to me, but I just can't let him go!"

"Why not?" Lance demanded, taking a step closer, and Pietro realized with a start that they were only inches apart. "You know, I don't have any parents! I never have! My birth dad beat me until I was eight, and then my foster parents did pretty much the same thing until I finally decided that I didn't need them anymore! I don't think of them as my parents! If my birth father came to this house right now and asked me to go with him right now, I'd tell him to go to hell! Why can't you do that, huh? Why?"

For a moment, Pietro was silent, all the words having been stolen from his throat by Lance's speech. "I don't know," he said at last, his voice much smaller than it should have been- how many times had he asked that question of himself? "I don't know why I can't let go. I want to... but I can't."

Lance rolled his eyes. "Of course you can," he said. "You don't need that guy's approval, Pietro. If he treats you like you're nothing, then he isn't your father. You've gotta understand that sometimes."

Pietro said nothing, and instead let his fingers run themselves into a blur as they moved across the new watch, taking in the cool metal against his skin. "Thanks," he said at last, and for the first time in a long time he genuinely meant it when he said that word. Whether he was saying thank you for the watch or for something else, Pietro wasn't sure.

Lance simply shrugged, his face impassive. "Yeah. Goodnight. Happy birthday," he added as an afterthought just before closing the door behind him and leaving Pietro alone again.

After that, Lance never really talked to him. It was clear to see; Lance didn't forgive Pietro for what he'd done, and Pietro doubted he ever could.

When Magneto died, it was a relief. That's the only word that can be used to describe it; a relief. Pietro knew that he probably ought to feel bad or something- like Wanda, whom he knew cried herself to sleep every night for a week after getting the news, clearly not thinking anyone else could tell. But Pietro didn't feel bad, not at all; he was free. He didn't have to be the leader anymore; that job could go back to Lance, and frankly, good riddance to it. He didn't have to always fear disappointing his father, he didn't have to turn his back on his friends because of what his father said. Magneto was gone, and Pietro didn't miss him.

After his death, things started going back to normal. Pietro didn't have to be a jerk anymore; and slowly, over time, Fred and Todd began to forgive him. Everything was almost normal- except for Lance. Lance, who barely even looked at Pietro at all. Lance, who never even noticed the silver watch that adorned his former friend's wrist daily. Lance, whose constant silent rejection hurt Pietro more than any one of Wanda's hex bolts ever could.

Todd was so quick to forgive him once he had started acting normally again; Pietro can only figure that he had just wanted everything to return to the way it used to be, back before the Sentinel, back before Magneto (and Pietro) tore everything apart. Fred was a bit slower to forgive; but even he eventually yielded, he too content in the knowledge that everything could finally return to almost-normal. So then why, Pietro mused, why was it that Lance couldn't? Pietro had _talked_ to Lance; he had told him things about the Sentinel and Magneto that he would never have dreamed of telling anyone else. So then why was it so hard for Lance to forgive him?

Pietro knew the answer, of course- Avalanche did not forgive. He had been hurt to many times in his life by people who were meant to care for him that eventually he just stopped forgiving people for their misdeeds, instead bottling it all away. Lance never forgave and he never forgot, and in a way Pietro was glad- because Lance's stubbornness only seemed to help justify the guilt he could still feel eating away at him.

In Pietro's mind, he just couldn't see redemption as being possible. He was a coward; his first instinct was to run, just as it had always been. He had run away from his friends during the Sentinel, he had run during the train incident, and he knew that he would always run. He didn't know how to do anything else.

**Pietro Maximoff: Five years old**

It happened so fast that, at first, Pietro wasn't even sure what had happened.

He and Wanda had just been fighting. Afterwards, neither twin could remember what the argument had been about; it had been over something stupid, like breakfast cereal, or whatever they had felt like arguing over that morning. Both of the twins had then gone out into the backyard- Pietro to sulk by the doorway, and Wanda to exert her frustrations by climbing her favorite tree, a large oak that towered more than twenty feet over the twins' heads.

One second he was standing against the wall, scowling as he watched Wanda as she, using all the strength in her thin arms to hoist herself up, ascended the tall tree. The next second Wanda's hand slipped and then suddenly she was falling, and Pietro could hear her screaming. And the second after that, Pietro had made it all the way across the backyard and Wanda landed smoothly in his arms, knocking them both to the ground.

They lay there for a second, both probably too stunned to do anything, before Wanda, exhaling shakily, looked towards her brother with wide, dark blue eyes and managed to get out one word: "Pietro?"

And then suddenly Wanda gasped and flung her arms around her brother's neck. "You saved me!" She exclaimed, sounding near tears, and Pietro hugged her back tightly as the realization of what he had just done fully hit him. He had just saved his sister's life.

"I knew you'd save me," Wanda whispered in his ear. "You always save me."

"Duh!" Pietro exclaimed as he pulled away, grinning. "Of course I do! You're my sister! I'll never not save you!"

Wanda beamed at him, rising slowly to her feet. "But," she said, turning to the kitchen with a devilish smirk towards her brother, still on the ground, "I can always save you, too."

And then she took off running towards the house, with Pietro trailing not far behind her, for once not using his super speed in a race against his sister.

**Pietro Maximoff: Seventeen years old**

He may not be redeemable. He may not be capable of being forgiven by Lance. He may not deserve the forgiveness of the others. He may not even rightfully deserve the love of his twin sister.

But none of that mattered when he saw Wanda lying there helpless on the ground, seconds away from being crushed by the man they called their father.

All of a sudden, he found himself back in that little boy's boy again. That young child, barely cracked, nowhere near broken, who could never imagine a world without his sister in it. A child who loved his sister unconditionally. A child who was worthy of forgiveness.

He was no longer that child. That innocent child had died, slowly, over time, crushed by his own reality. The person Pietro Maximoff was today may not deserve the forgiveness bestowed upon his former self so many years ago.

But when Pietro snatched his sister out of harms way right before their own father could manage to take her life, none of that mattered. Because in that moment, he could nearly imagine that there wasn't so much of a difference between himself and that child after all.

"Pietro?" Wanda breathed, sounding exactly as incredulous as she had the first time her brother had saved her life. Smiling gently (an expression that was entirely new to him, and did not yet feel quite comfortable on his face), Pietro set his sister down on her feet.

"Hey sis," he said. "You looked like you could use a hand."

_"I knew you'd save me," _Wanda had said that day. _"You always save me."_

And Pietro's reply? _"I'll never not save you."_

This was him, Pietro realized as he stood with his sister. This was who he was. Sure, he might be cracked, and hurt, and sure he might be a coward and a liar, but above all he was a brother. A brother to Wanda and a brother to the Brotherhood. His loyalties lay with his family; they always had. But he had been mistaken as to who his true family was; _this_ was his family.

Pietro looked at Lance, and Lance glanced back at him. Pietro nodded just slightly, and, almost minutely, Lance nodded back.

And then they stood together- side by side, just like the Brotherhood that they used to be. There was no distrust, no grudges, to distance them from each other as they faced down Magneto.

"Okay, Avalanche," Pietro said, staring his father right in the face. And with his next spoken words, he brought to mind what Lance had said to him on his birthday, so many weeks- or had it been months, now?- ago. And, for the first time in his life, as he looked around at the group gathered around him, Pietro finally realized that he didn't need his father.

He had a family. It was little, and it was poor, and it was marred by betrayal and distrust and crime, but it was a family all the same. Standing with them as he faced down Magneto, Pietro knew where he belonged; and it was this final realization that gave him the strength to say, as he stared directly at his father: "Bring him down."

He and Wanda may have carried Magneto away, but that did not make him their father. Would he even want to reconnect at that point? Pietro didn't know; but he didn't care, and he could see by the look on Wanda's face that she didn't either. They both knew that they didn't need them anymore. They had the Brotherhood- they had their _family_- and that was more than Magneto could ever give them, and that was all they needed to have. And, for the first time in a long time, Pietro was happy.

oOo

People are cracked, and they are broken; but that doesn't mean that it's impossible for them to heal. Sure, it takes time, and it's not easy, but it is possible. No one can be fixed entirely, because cracks are things that are carried around for entire lifetimes; they leave scars that mark you as a person, and they shape who you are and who you will become.

But these cracks can be filled, and they can be covered, and they can be healed.

_**AN: Hi, guys! This is my first Evo fic- recently I've become obsessed with the show, especially with the Brotherhood. Pietro is by far my favorite character, though in terms of personality I'd have to say I'm a bit more like Kitty.**_

_**Obviously, none of these characters belong to me. Trust me, if I owned X-Men: Evolution, Pietro would have gotten more than that one moment at the end of the series to show off that he was really a good guy. Hell, if I owned Evo, the show would probably be all about the Brotherhood, so I guess it's a good thing I don't.**_

_**Like I said, this is my first Evo fic, so I might have made a couple of mistakes. Reviews are wonderful, and every last one is appreciated.** _


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